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  Sixty-four sorties were flown against four North Vietnamese patrol boat bases and a major oil storage depot. An estimated twenty-five enemy vessels were put out of action. Two US planes were downed and one pilot, Lieutenant Everett Alvarez Jr, became the first US prisoner of the war to be captured by the North Vietnamese. It would be eight years before he returned home.

  On 7 August, the resolution Johnson had prepared was put before Congress. Now called the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, it was passed by the House 416–0 and by the Senate 88–2, with only Senators Morse and Ernest Gruening of Alaska voting against it. This is what it said:

  SEC. 1. Whereas naval units of the Communist regime in Vietnam, in violation of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law, have deliberately and repeatedly attacked United States naval vessels lawfully present in international waters, and have thereby created a serious threat to international peace.

  Whereas these attacks are part of a deliberate and systematic campaign of aggression that the Communist regime in North Vietnam has been waging against its neighbors and the nations joined with them in the collective defence of their freedom.

  Whereas the United States is assisting the peoples of southeast Asia to protect their freedom and has no territorial, military or political ambitions in that area, but desires only that these peoples should be left in peace to work out their own destinies in their own way. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.

  SEC. 2. The United States regards as vital to its national interest and to world peace the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. Consonant with the Constitution of the United States and the Charter of the United Nations and in accordance with its obligations under the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, the United States is, therefore, prepared, as the President determines, to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defence of its freedoms.

  SEC. 3. This resolution shall expire when the President shall determine that the peace world security of the area is reasonably assured by international conditions created by action of the United Nations or otherwise except that it may be terminated earlier by resolution of the Congress.

  Johnson was delighted. Authorising him to 'take all necessary measures' to repel attacks on US forces and to 'prevent further aggression', the Resolution meant that he could take any action he wanted, without further reference to Congress.

  'Like grandma's nightshirt,' Johnson said, 'it covered everything'.

  Long before the war was over, it was discovered that the Gulf of Tonkin incident as portrayed by the administration was a fraud. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings in 1968 established that any North Vietnamese action in the Gulf of Tonkin was far from 'unprovoked'. The Maddox had been involved in covert action against North Vietnam. It was also established that plans to bomb North Vietnam had been drawn up before the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Architect of the Resolution, National Security Adviser Walt W. Rostow said of the incident, 'We don't know what happened, but it had the desired result'.

  Senator Morse had also known that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a cynical ploy from the beginning. A lean and humorless teetotaller, he had been a progressive Republican when he arrived in Washington in 1945, but he fell out with the GOP over education and labour relations and switched to the Democrats. Known to oppose his party's policy in Vietnam, he received a phone call on the morning of 6 August, 1964 from an officer in the Pentagon – whose name he would never divulge – telling him that the Maddox, rather than being an innocent party, had been involved in raids on North Vietnam. He had little influence in the Senate but, with Senator Gruening, voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, while doubters such as George McGovern of South Dakota and John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky were talked around by Senator William Fulbright, who later became a robust opponent of the war.

  In February 1966, Morse introduced an amendment to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. This time, other senators expressed their doubts about the sweeping powers the resolution gave the President. Morse managed to prolong the debate for two weeks but, when it came to a vote, only five senators backed him. By then others judged that America was in too deep to back out. With Gruening, Morse backed a bill barring draftees being sent to Vietnam without congressional approval. Only the two of them voted for it.

  The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was only repealed in 1970 on the initiative of Senator Robert Dole of Kansas (a supporter of Nixon and, later, a Republican presidential candidate) after President Nixon had been censured for extending the war into Cambodia. Dole figured that, by 1970, the resolution had become obsolete. Nixon did not oppose its repeal, asserting that his authority to conduct the war in Vietnam did not depend on the Resolution but rather on his power as commanderin-chief. The bill was passed on 24 June by eighty-one votes to ten.

  Even though the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave Johnson all the powers he wanted to prosecute the war, the Communist leadership in Hanoi decided to step up the struggle in the South, even though it realised that the US was likely to intervene. The Vietcong went on the offensive. They attacked an isolated government forces camp near Binh Dinh, hurling themselves against the perimeter for six hours. An estimated 500 died. One hundred bodies were picked off the wire by the defenders when the assault force withdrew. On 31 October 1964, the Vietcong attacked Bien Hoa airbase, northeast of Saigon, floating past on sampans disguised as farmers, before opening up with mortars. Four Americans were killed, five bombers were destroyed and eight more damaged. But with the election just a few days away, Johnson rejected proposals for retaliatory raids against the North. Johnson was re-elected president on 3 November, and did not have to wait long for a fresh excuse to attack the North Vietnamese. On 24 December the Vietcong blew up the Brinks Hotel in Saigon, where US officers were billeted. On Christmas Eve, the hotel was packed with US soldiers waiting for Bob Hope, a regular performer for the troops in Vietnam, when a VC driver parked a truck packed with explosives outside. The explosion ripped through the hotel, killing two Americans and injuring fifty-eight others. Again Johnson stayed his hand.

  The event more than any other that brought the Marines to the beaches of Da Nang occurred on the night of 7 February 1965. At Camp Holloway, an airbase near the provincial capital of Pleiku, some 400 Americans of the 52nd Combat Aviation Battalion were asleep when 300 Vietcong crept up on them. For the previous week, there had been a ceasefire for the Vietnamese festival for the lunar new year, Tet. The Vietcong had used that time to stockpile captured American mortars and ammunition. At 0200hrs, they began bombarding the airbase, turning it into a conflagration of exploding ammunition and burning aircraft which left seven American dead and 100 wounded.

  'They are killing our men while they are asleep at night,' said President Johnson. 'I can't ask American soldiers to continue to fight with one hand behind their back'.

  On 2 March 1965, 100 US jet bombers took off from Da Nang airbase to strike at targets in the North. As it was Vietcong who had attacked Camp Holloway, this was the first air strike against North Vietnam that could not be justified as retaliation and it began a sustained campaign of graduated bombing known as Operation Rolling Thunder that continued, on and off, for the next three years. Its aim was to slow the infiltration of men and supplies from the North and bomb the Communists to the negotiating table. It succeeded in neither, but America was now committed to a course of action and President Johnson had raised the political price of failure. That same day, the four ships of Amphibious Task Force 76 set sail from Japan. The Second Indochina War – the American war in Vietnam – was n
ow underway.

  Soldiers of the US 101st Airborne drag the body of a Vietcong fighter to the rear after fierce fighting around An Khe, September 1966.

  3

  THE WAR ON THE GROUND

  ALTHOUGH US GROUND TROOPS had now been committed to a land war on the Asian mainland, President Johnson still hoped to make peace. On 7 April, in a speech at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, he offered Ho Chi Minh a chance to join a $1 billion Southeast Asian development programme in exchange for peace. Hanoi rejected the offer.

  Johnson publicly denied that the Marine landings at Da Nang were part of a 'far-reaching strategy' to escalate the war, but the war soon developed a momentum of its own. 1965 began with 23,000 Americans in Vietnam and ended with 184,300. The Da Nang landings were followed by a steady commitment of Marines to I Corps Tactical Zone in the northern provinces of South Vietnam. By mid-April, General William Westmoreland announced a more aggressive patrolling policy and the first clashes between American ground troops and the Vietcong took place. This was part of Westmoreland's belligerent 'search and destroy' strategy. He believe that by hunting down the enemy he could use superior American firepower to kill off Communist soldiers faster than they could be replaced. It would be a war of attrition. But to succeed in such a strategy, more men would be needed.

  Soon US troops were pouring into Vietnam. At home in the US, young men of draft-age realised that they risked being sent to a war in a far-flung part of the world where no vital American interest seemed to be at stake. On 17 April 1965, 15,000 students staged an anti-war rally in Washington, DC. To no avail. At a conference in Honolulu on 19–20 April, Westmoreland asked Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara for the US presence to be raised from 40,200 to 82,000 and, on 5 May 1965, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, 'the Herd', which was the US Army's rapid-response unit for the western Pacific, was flown from Okinawa to Bien Hoa to provide temporary assistance to MACV – Military Assistance Command Vietnam. The first US Army combat unit to join the conflict, they should have been relieved by the First Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division in late July. But when the 'Screaming Eagles' arrived, the Herd stayed on.

  A sit-down peace demonstration temporarily halts the Armed Forces Day Parade on New York's Fifth Avenue, 15 May 1965.

  The North Vietnamese high command was not surprised by the commitment of American ground troops. Plans had already been laid for a long war. By June 1965, small contingents of North Vietnamese troops were fighting alongside the Vietcong to test American strength and observe US tactics.

  On 21 September, the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) was moved from Fort Benning, Georgia, to An Khe in II Corps Tactical Zone to the south. In October, the whole of the First Infantry Division, 'the Big Red One', was sent to III Corps Tactical Zone, which covered the area around Saigon. And the Americans were not the only ones involved. The government in Canberra was also an advocate of the domino theory and in 1962 the Australians had sent thirty military advisers to South Vietnam. On 4 April 1965, Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies praised the US for accepting the challenge to 'human freedom' in Vietnam and, on 26 May, 800 more Aussies turned up in-country, while New Zealand announced it would send a battalion. By the end of the year, there were 1400 Australians in Vietnam. Their commitment peaked at 7,672; New Zealand's at 552. The British managed to stay out of the war, officially. But there have been persistent rumors that British SAS men served in Vietnam as 'instructors' in Australian and New Zealand SAS units and as part of an exchange programme with the US Special Forces. British citizens who were permanent residents in the US – green card holders – were also eligible for the draft. Americans were also trained in British jungle training schools and the British sent printing presses for the Saigon government to produce propaganda.

  An Australian APC in Vietnam, 1967.

  Australian Army Minister Phillip Lynch (centre) visits Saigon, accompanied by General Robert Hay (left), commander of Australian forces in Vietnam.

  South Korean troops – the ROKs – had arrived in Vietnam in February 1965. They first came under fire on 3 April, by which time there were 200 in country. At the peak of their commitment, 44,829 ROKs controlled a coastal strip of II CTZ. Thailand sent 11,568 troops and allowed American bombers, fighters, and reconnaissance planes to use their airbases. They also allowed an Infiltration Surveillance Center and other US intelligence outfits to operate from their territory. President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines sent 2,000 men. The Republic of China (Taiwan) sent thirty-one and Fascist Spain sent a thirteen-man medical team. More bizarrely, Morocco sent 10,000 cans of sardines, while the Swiss sent microscopes for Saigon University.

  Alongside these foreign troops were South Vietnam's forces, the ARVN, who numbered around 620,000 men. But they were not terribly effective. While 90 per cent of American largest-scale operations managed to make contact with the enemy, less than half of ARVN operations did. Officers sold drugs and prostitutes and the desertion rate ran at over twenty per cent. Under Westmoreland's new search-and destroy strategy, the ARVN were relegated to searching for guerrillas in areas cleared by US forces in major operations. But their performance did not improve and their assignment was quickly nicknamed 'search and avoid'. However, the ARVN did have some successes. On 4 April, they destroyed a Vietcong enclave in the U Minh forest, a Communist stronghold in the Mekong Delta to the south of Saigon, killing 238 VC. On 29 April they killed another eighty-four and took thirty-one prisoner, while US air support claimed a further seventy VC dead. And the ARVN claimed another 250 VC dead in the Mekong Delta on 13 August.

  On 21 April, the restrictions limiting the Marines to the eight square miles around the Da Nang airbase were lifted, so that they could support the ARVN. The following day another Buddhist monk burnt himself to death publicly in Saigon in protest at the war. The picture was carried in the press around the world. It did nothing to halt the escalation.

  On the 24th, Johnson stepped up the bombing campaign and declared the whole of Vietnam a combat zone, meaning that all US servicemen serving there would receive combat pay and get tax advantages. Already the war was costing America $15 billion a year, McNamara announced. Congress quickly approved a further $700 million for the war but on 1 June Johnson asked for another $89 million in economic aid.

  Warnings by Cyrus Eaton, a millionaire industrialist newly returned from a peace mission to Moscow, that the USSR would start a nuclear war if US aggression continued were ignored, and a British MP who went to Hanoi in an attempt to open peace negotiations was rebuffed.

  The Vietcong stepped up its attacks, scoring major victories. In mid-June, the Vietcong attacked a Special Forces camp and the district headquarters of the ARVN at Dong Xoai, besieging it for four days. In the heaviest fighting so far, the ARVN suffered 900 casualties. The VC were eventually driven off by heavy US air strikes, losing 350 in the fighting on the ground and maybe twice that number in the bombing.

  The Roman Catholic opposition forced Prime Minister Quat from office. He was replaced by the flamboyant South Vietnamese air force chief General Nguyen Cao Ky, who was installed as the head of a military regime in Saigon on 18 June. Known for his mirrored shades and his good-looking wife, he was later reported saying that Adolf Hitler was one of his 'heroes'. Ky urged the US to stage an all-out invasion of the North. Politically, this was out of the question. Nevertheless Johnson upped the draft from 17,000 a month to 35,000. The US ground forces also abandoned their defensive posture, and at the end of June launched a major offensive on a Vietcong enclave twenty miles northeast of Saigon, which failed to make contact with the enemy. The VC could fade away at will.

  By this time the Marines in Da Nang were getting itchy trigger fingers. They had been trained for aggressive action, not for defence, and had spent five frustrating months filling sandbags and patrolling the perimeter of the airbase. Plagued by mosquitoes, their fitful sleep in the hot oppressive air was disturbed by monkeys setting off trip flares or rattling the rock-filled beer cans that w
ere hung in the wire to warn them of Vietcong infiltrating the base. Patrolling the hills to the west of the base provided little diversion. Loaded with heavy equipment, the Marines dropped like flies from heat exhaustion. Occasionally, they would catch a fleeting glimpse of a VC dressed in the traditional black pyjamas disappearing into the trees and, seemingly, vanishing into thin air. Morale was at rock bottom.

  'The Marine mission was to kill Vietcong,' said the Marine Corps General Wallace M. Greene. 'They can't do that by sitting on their ditty boxes'.

  Even inside the airbase they were taunted by the Vietcong. At 0130hrs on the morning of 1 July, a sentry was alerted by a noise down by the perimeter wire. He threw an illumination grenade, which brought down mortar fire from the VC. In the midst of the barrage, Vietcong sappers cut through the wire and tossed explosives, destroying three planes and damaging three others. Only one American was killed, but the action attracted worldwide attention. In response, the Marines stepped up their patrolling, to little avail. Trying to find Vietcong among the Vietnamese population, it was said, was like trying to find tears in a bucket of water. Soon the frustration was too much for them. Marines were filmed setting fire to the village of Cam Ne, six miles west of Da Nang, with their Zippo lighters, even though the Vietcong had long since left the area. CBS aired TV footage of the incident on 3 August, sparking international condemnation. It was the first of many such incidents. Two days later, the VC struck again, attacking the Esso terminal near Da Nang and destroying two million gallons of gasoline, nearly 40 per cent of the US fuel supply.

  Westmoreland received permission to use his troops as he saw fit in more aggressive action. The American 'tactical area of responsibility' was increased to 600 square miles and US forces prepared themselves to launch new search-and-destroy operations. On 15 August, a VC defector told his interrogators that 1,500 men of the 1st Vietcong Regiment were massing in the villages around Van Tuong, around 80 miles down the coast from Da Nang, ready to attack the new Marine enclave at Chu Lai. For the Marines this was too good an opportunity to miss. But they had to move fast. They decided to attack the VC from three directions simultaneously, surrounding them and pushing them back into the Van Tuong peninsular. They would advance overland from Chu Lai, blocking any breakout to the north. A Marine battalion would make an amphibious landing to the south, while helicopters would land more Marines to the west. The VC would then find themselves trapped with their backs to the sea. This time the elusive enemy would find no escape.